Posted on 04/02/2014 4:16:21 AM PDT by PaulCruz2016
WASHINGTON (AP) — Caterpillar Inc. executives defended a tax strategy Tuesday that has saved the manufacturing giant billions in U.S. taxes. They got support from Republican senators, including one who said the company deserves an award.
Caterpillar has avoided paying $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes since 2000 by shifting profits to a wholly-controlled affiliate in Switzerland, according to a report released by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. Levin chairs the Senate investigations subcommittee. On Tuesday, Levin grilled Caterpillar executives and their accountants at a hearing on the company's tax strategy.
"Caterpillar is an American success story that produces iconic industrial machines," Levin said. "But it is also a member of the corporate profit-shifting club that has transferred billions of dollars offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes."
Julie Lagacy, a Caterpillar vice president, was adamant that the Peoria, Ill.-based manufacturer follows all tax laws. "We pay everything we owe," she told the subcommittee. Caterpillar got support from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who questioned why the subcommittee was even holding the hearing.
"I think rather than having an inquisition, we should probably bring Caterpillar here and give them an award," Paul said. "You know, they've been in business for over 100 years. It's not easy to stay in business."
Paul said Caterpillar and its accountants have an obligation to shareholders to minimize their taxes. "It is a requirement that you try to minimize your costs. So rather than chastising Caterpillar we should be complimenting them," Paul said.
(Excerpt) Read more at mail.com ...
democrats hate success. Especially when you’re successful at keeping their hands out of your pockets
If I were emperor, I’d have Cat building a factory in Detroit by their own choice.
The community organizers are out in force in the projects this morning. They are urging the urban black community to boycott the evil Caterpillar corporation
Caterpillar was one of the couple of companies to come out and say they were going to stop funding the Boy Scouts if the Boy Scouts did not go gay
Sen Paul is trying to appeal to the pro gay lobby without saying it?
“I’d have Cat building a factory in Detroit by their own choice.”
Cities exist because of the mutual availability of labor and employers. Detroit has run off all the employers with bad tax policy, which in the national picture has also run numerous US companies abroad. But the labor side of the equation is a motivated good quality work force. I don’t think that exists in Detroit. What is left are the takers. The makers left long ago. Those who would happily take the jobs are not qualified to do them. For example, literacy in Detroit is at third world levels.
Any entity that can reduce it’s taxes by going offshore should do so. Corporations and individuals do not exist primarily to fund government despite what the turd in the white house, his accomplices in government, and his parasitic voters and supporters think.
The phrase off shore is not really applicable. There are many many corporations with operations scattered across the world.
They have staffs that operate seamlessly where ever located. The country of origin is not as important as it was during the mercantile age because owners and operations are truly global.
Caterpillar, Siemens, Toyota, General Motors, Nestle are examples
these companies are just asking the question,"Why are taxes here so high?" This is not unprecedented. Companies have moved operations and headquarters out of high tax states like New York and California without even a whimper from liberals because they are still in the U.S. Moving companies and headquarters off shore is just the next logical move and "logic" drives liberals wild!
these companies are just asking the question,"Why are taxes here so high?" This is not unprecedented. Companies have moved operations and headquarters out of high tax states like New York and California without even a whimper from liberals because they are still in the U.S. Moving companies and headquarters off shore is just the next logical move and "logic" drives liberals wild!
Doubtful, but let's go ahead and trash him anyways.
Not all of them. I believe Detroit engines are still made there.
Let’s do. Unless someone can tell me why he is considered a conservative.
I see you either decided to pick a nit or you didn't understand my point. Let me make it clearer in case you didn't understand. Any time a corporation can save taxes (which are an expense for which NOTHING of value is received) by geographic shuffling they should do it.
It’s situations like the one with Cat that show why we should eliminate the corporate tax. It would be a huge financial windfall for this country from the point of investment and jobs. Corporations have the capability to avoid the tax. If they will avoid it, eliminate it.
The fallacy is believing that those who write tax law will outwit those who have the greatest incentive to avoid it.
> “Caterpillar is an American success story that produces iconic industrial machines,” Levin said. “But it is also a member of the corporate profit-shifting club that has transferred billions of dollars offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes.”
Well Monsieur Levin, you could repatriate the 30 trillion dollars that US Corporations have moved offshore, increase US corporate global competitiveness by at least 20%, create a renaissance in US manufacturing on US soil, bring tens of millions of jobs back to the USA, boost GDP by 10% in one year, vastly increase government tax revenues and cut taxes enormously by enacting the most supported tax reform in Congress for the past 7 years that is brilliant, American inspired and innovated and that is inline with the original foundings of our US Constitution.
It’s all in HR 25, popularly known as the ‘FairTax’ legislation.
READ NOW:
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=FAQs
No doubt Carl Levin and the rest of the idiot Democrats are pissed because they get their greedy hands on all of that money. He and his party are the biggest reasons our manufacturing sector is all but gone in this country.
The financial strategy laid out by Rand Paul for Detroit and other economically depressed areas included tax free repatriation and an economic free zone at the borders without taxation.
Its something that needs to go nationwide but Detroit would be a good test bed for proving it.
I presume you mean by making it easy enough to do it.
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